


The Court of Hounds

by Hagen



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Anal Sex, Army, Arranged Marriage, Assassination, Bards, Childhood Trauma, Court Politics, Courtly Love, Dukes - Freeform, Earls, Estranged Relatives, F/M, Fame, First Time, Forbidden Love, Formal Titles, Horseback Riding, Hunters & Hunting, Illegitimacy, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Impotence, Jealousy, Jewels, Jousting, Kings & Queens, Knights - Freeform, Knights of Ren - Freeform, Light BDSM, Lordship, M/M, Marital Issues, Medieval Court, Medieval Fashion, Military, Monarchy, Original Fiction, Original Universe, Patricide, Pet Names, Physical Abuse, Politics, Polyamory, Renaissance Fashion, Sex, Tourneys, duchy, estates, lords and ladies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-04-19 02:44:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14227386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagen/pseuds/Hagen
Summary: At the court of hounds, the fox must race to be lord.





	1. Thaw

**Author's Note:**

> I drew up a playlist for this fic, as I do with all my fics, so please do check it out. I also add a song -or two- which I think suits the chapter.
> 
> The Court of Hounds Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/domingo_might_be/playlist/0g53arkbOde0Q6DxG8xnLA?si=h9glKHmoSH2KINDN3Z0Uvw
> 
> Songs:
> 
> Damaged | John Lunn. Link - https://open.spotify.com/track/5j3pwJnTR0jTdB15zDEhT7?si=2R19TT6qRrKREC6KxHNfYA
> 
> Orlais Theme | Trevor Morris. Link - https://open.spotify.com/track/0tuPwD6woXaK5Yn6uW73Sd?si=FJrlQ6ucQqGHNPrB7YmNrw

                                        

 

 

 

               It was often that the songbirds woke him.

 

                Winter was beginning to soften, to thaw; to yield and give way to spring. It felt grim. Hux took joy in several things; order, success, the clean _shing_ of a new blade, blackberry wine brought to Foxwall by the cask – and, of course, winter. One knew where one stood with winter. She was crisp, sharp, blanketed in snow and ice. _Consistent. Clean. Sharp. Orderly._ Winter air was brisk and bracing and good for the lungs.

 

Spring was fickle. A single day could bring rain by morning and sun by afternoon, then thunder and lightning by night. One could venture out on the hunt in the midday sun and be soaked quite to the skin moments later by sudden and inexplicable showers.

 

A finch alighted on the green-budded branch outside the window and twittered. Hux rose and went to the window so that it flew away in a panic of yellow and black, and leaned on the sill to observe the frost of the morning.

 

The lordswood loomed beyond the peasants’ fields, the town, and beyond that rose the hills. The red banners fluttered along the high stone walls, the leaping scarlet fox of Hux interspersed with the obnoxiously blue Kenobi stag. Hux rather thought that the colours clashed horribly. He would have them removed, he decided, and replaced with a redesigned palette. A year was long enough for those garish banners to flap in the wind. _Order, always order._

Arkanis was like to bring rain at a moment’s notice, even without the unpredictable ways of spring. The skies here were cast over with argent and grey more often than not, but when the sun shone it shone so _brightly,_ blinding the eyes and freckling the skin.

 

It was raining now, though it was a light patter rather than a downpour. Hux turned back to the bed. She was asleep, or at least pretending to be. Her slender form was a huddle beneath the fine crimson covers, shaded from the light by the sheer red canopies about the bed. He washed, dressed. The door to the chambers opened, closed, every little sound echoing through bedchamber and into the fine white-tiled washroom. He heard her stirring, heard her handmaiden speaking, heard Rey giggle.

 

They would be married for a year - four entire seasons - in five days. At times it felt as brief as a flash, and at others it felt as though it had been entire centuries.

 

He emerged in customary black, doublet and britches as dark as coal. Its left breast was sewn with the scarlet fox, and above that he had pinned his commander’s brooch. The hearth and the sconces had been lit. His wife was sitting at her dressing-table, perched on a stool while her handmaid combed her hair through. It was long, never-shorn, hanging past her waist. Her eyes found his in the gilded mirror.

 

“Will you take me riding today?” she asked him.

 

“No. There’s a meeting of the council.”

 

“After that.”

 

Hux lifted a hand to gesture out the window.

 

“Black, perhaps,” he said, “or silver. Which do you prefer?”

 

She made an intense sound.“ _Blue_ ,” she said pointedly. She was still wearing her bedrobe. It pooled about the floor at her feet, a fine ripple of blood-red silk.

 

“It’s gaudy.” He stood, observing, clasping his hands together at the base of his spine. The handmaid was running the brush through her hair, taking care to separate tangles without causing breakage. The brush was cream enamel, inlaid with silver and deep jasper, bristled with boar’s hair. It was one of the gifts he had given her. “Though perhaps a darkened shade would suffice.”

 

He had given and continued to give her many gifts; cut gems with delicate silver hooks to be suspended from the earlobes, ropes of precious pearls, priceless glittering rings, mountains of books, strings of jewels that twinkled in even the dimmest light and sat carefully among the delicate lines of her neck. Her jewellery-box – he’d had a fine ebony box made for her, carved all with the stags of her house – was fit to bursting with shimmering gems and chains.

 

“It’s not _gaudy_.” Rey frowned at her reflection. “Rose, do you think that the blue on the banners is gaudy?”

 

The handmaid stilled, faltered. She dared glance at Hux, who said nothing with his mouth but spoke volumes with his eyes, and murmured, “It’s not my place to say, my lady.” His wife was young but the handmaid was younger, baby-faced with inky hair and slanted eyes. She was awfully _capable,_ and his lady wife took great pleasure in her company.

 

“And do you think, Rose, that blue of such a shade _clashes_ with such a shade of red?” Hux interjected. He had never called her by name before and could plainly see that that his utterance of it shook her.

 

“I wouldn’t want to forget my place, my lord,” she said, bowing her head.

 

His tone was sharp. “But we are at an impasse. My lady wife thinks that the blue is wholly acceptable, and I fear that I do not. You must be the judge to our jury.”

 

“I – well, I-“ She looked between his impassive face and Rey’s in the mirror. He thought that he saw her face twist ever so slightly in apology, and she said, “Well, I – I have no eye for colour, my lord, no eye at all – but perhaps the blue –forgive me, my lady, if I may- it is ever so slightly – _off-_ colour with your lordship’s sigil.”

 

Hux smiled. “There, you see?” he asked Rey, and she raised her eyes to heaven. _Dark blue, so dark it’s almost black,_ he decided. _If she desires blue then she must have blue, but never in such a lurid hue as the one that stains my walls._ He would send for the standard-makers before noon.

 

Blood-red and midnight-blue and void-black. The new colours, most fitting, of Arkanis.

 

Hux watched until the brushing was complete. The handmaid smoothed Rey’s hair down once with her hand and stood back to appraise her handiwork.

 

“Leave us,” Hux told Rose, and she did, closing the heavy door behind her.

 

Hux crossed the room, and his hands found the space above Rey’s silken shoulders. Their eyes met in the mirror, and she nodded once.

 

“Beautiful,” he stated, lifting a lock of braid-curled hair and letting it fall back into place. “Such white skin.” His fingers drew back the red silk and swept softly across the freckles there. His lady wife had a penchant for dresses that exposed her milky flesh to the sun, and was smattered with golden dots as a result. Within a week of their marriage, every courtier in Arkanis was trying to imitate her. The stark winter sky did not allow for much freckling, and so artifice was employed. Hux had seen countless women with gold paint dotted along their shoulders, countless men with silver stars scattered across their cheeks.

 

“Such a beautiful neck ought to be prettied with jewels,” Hux said curtly.

 

“Fetch me my rubies,” she told him in equally crisp tones, and he did. They were a heavy set, but he’d had them specially made to fit perfectly about her delicate neck. They hung in a glittering spider’s web of diamonds, silver and red equidistant from one another – _order, order_ \- with a single, weighty jewel hanging prettily at the base of her throat.

 

“Hold your hair out of the way.”

 

Rey pulled her hair over her shoulder and lifted it. She stiffened at the cool touch of the jewels as he laced them ever so gently about her neck and fastened the careful clasps at her nape.

 

“Beautiful,” he repeated brusquely. “Radiant.”

 

Rey let her hair fall, and coldly said, “You flatter me, my lord.”

 

Hux took up the hairbrush and began where Rose had left off. “I do not flatter. Flattery is a fool’s weapon.”

 

“Are you going to begin to use it?”

 

Hux stroked the delicate juncture where her neck and shoulder joined. “Do you call me a fool, sweetling?”

 

“Yes.”

 

"My lady?" The door opened. "A parcel for you, my lady." Rose's head appeared around the frame. "Have I leave to enter, my lady?"

 

                "Always," Rey said, turning on the stool.

 

                "A parcel from whom?" Hux asked. He lay the hairbrush down on the dressing-table’s polished surface with a _click._

  

                Rose bore a lengthy, thick wooden box in her arms. "Lay it here," Rey suggested, going to the bed, and Rose did. It was a long dress-box, hewn from smoothed oak and inlaid with panels of red glass. There were three brass clasping locks in all. When Hux looked properly, he could see that they held the likeness of brass foxes, locking when the beasts’ tails clicked into their mouths.

 

"From your lord father, my lord. From Ser Brendol. A rider came not ten minutes ago."

 

                Hux stood in the middle of the room, hands tight behind his back, and watched as they opened it. _Your lord father._ He forced himself to swallow the rancour that threatened to overflow at the mention of him.

 

                The box was opened, and there was a flood of gasps from both women as Rose pulled forth and unfolded a dress.

 

                It was green brocade silk, swirling with fleur-de-lis of gold and amber. The skirts rustled, thick with petticoats, as it was held up. Rey’s hands flew to her mouth. “ _Look_!” she exclaimed, lifting an emerald sleeve.

 

                “What shall I do with it, my lady?”

 

                “I want to wear it.” Rey shot Hux a look. “A man should never watch a lady dress.”

“No,” he agreed, and swept past them into his study.

 

                There was a foul taste in his mouth, as though he’d bitten his tongue and covered it in blood. He stared at his writing-desk, at the neat stacks of letters, at the shelves thick and fit to bursting with bound books. The sconces in here had not yet been lit and the fire not yet stoked, and so it was dark, cold. The high latticed windows allowed streams of dim blueish light.

 

                His father had spoken only two words to him at his wedding. _Good boy._ He had sent a box of rings for Rey in the months after, emeralds and topaz set on gold bands, and Hux had cast them right out, box and all, of the open window in their chambers in front of his father’s messenger. He knew that word had gotten back.

 

A dress was not so easy to cast out of a window. He inhaled deeply and clenched his fists behind his back.

 

He heard Rey’s voice, calling him to come and see. "It _does_ suit you, my lady," he heard Rose say, awestruck. "It's a beautiful colour.” When he emerged, they were standing before the long-mirror. He’d had that made for her, too, in the same fashion as her jewellery-box.

 

Though her heartwood hair was loose and unkempt, her feet unshod and without stockings, the dress became her. Her lady-in-waiting laced securely its cream silk-stringed back. Rey caught his eye in the long-mirror and lifted her chin.

 

                “Do you like it?” she asked him. “For our anniversary. He wrote you a letter.”

 

                Hux’s eyes fell once more on the long box on the bed. It was packed with linens to keep the dress from linting. Nestled there lay a single sealed note, stamped with the red wax fox. He plucked it from where it lay and thrust it open with one arm still behind his back.

 

                _… for your lady wife … to her satisfaction … southern silks … in celebration of the first of countless years … the Tourneys … your turn … glory … Arkanis … your **loving** **lord** **father** … **Brendol** \---_

Hux’s stomach churned. _Fuck you_. _Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, **fuck you.**_

 

Hux cast the letter aside abruptly. The lady-in-waiting faltered again at the harsh rustle of paper, but continued to lace. Rey looked at him expectantly, gesturing at the dress. It was, he supposed, the least he could afford her.

 

“As fresh as a clover, my lady, and no less beautiful.”

 

                Her words were stiff. “Have you been _reading_ , my lord?”

 

                “No more than usual.”

 

                “Oh.” Rey smoothed her skirts, obnoxiously green against the white of her hands. “Your words are witty – unusually so. It shows.”

 

                Hux saw Rose swallow deeply from the corner of his eye. He retrieved the letter and threw the wax seal pointedly into the fire. The letter itself Rey watched him from the mirror, straightening her back as the last of the laces were securely tied.

 

                “Rose,” Hux said, as the girl fastened the loose silks into a discreet knot and stood. He rarely deigned to even acknowledged her existence; she was his wife’s handmaid and had little to do with him. “Seek out Lady Phasma. If she is not outside the door she will be at the entrance to the staircase. Give her this letter. Tell her to find me after the meeting of the council.”

 

                She took the letter and went, murmuring various _my lord_ s and _my lady_ s. Hux did not move until she was gone. Rey’s eyes bored into him from the mirror. The hollow _clunk_ as the door closed sounded too loud, echoing through their chambers.

 

                “What did he say?”

 

                “He congratulates us on our first year of countless happy years of marriage, and hopes that this sackcloth of a dress is to your satisfaction,” Hux said, straightening himself behind her.

 

Rey went pink. “I thought you liked it.” She swept her arm down the sleeve.

 

“Any dress patronised and paid for by the man that calls himself my father isn’t fit to mop the floor of a whorehouse. Take it off. I will have another made for you, one worthy to touch your skin.”

 

“No,” she said. “I’m not taking it off. It was a gift and I’m going to wear it.”

 

“Take it off,” Hux snapped, “or I will run a blade up its seam and take it off for you. I will not have my wife dressed in his rags."

 

Her nostrils flared, and she did not budge. Hux grabbed her by the waist and pulled forth sharply the dagger at his hip. Her gasp was audible, loud in the high room.

 

His dagger split easily the tightly-laced silk, each taut string breaking with a _thrum._ Hux fisted a hand in the fabric at the base of her back and _ripped_ the length of the skirt and the petticoats beneath with a single sweep of his arm. He released it and it fell forward like a lifeless body, so heavy with brocade that it landed with an audible _thump_ on the wood of the floor.

 

Rey stared at him in the mirror, naked and flushed from hairline to breast.

 

He sheathed the dagger, never once looking away from her. “I will have another made. Ten, one hundred, one thousand if it pleases you. But I will die before I see you wearing his rags.”

 

Slowly, voice shaking – not in fear, in fury – she said, “I hate you.”

 

She dressed in her brasserie and her dress of red velvets, to match the rubies at her neck – she ordered Hux to lace the back for her, fuming – and the garnets, the pearls hanging from her ears. He braided her hair briskly as she sat, anger rolling off of her in waves. Her eyes kept going to the split dress, lying discarded on the floor.

 

“What did the letter really say?” she demanded.

 

“It said what I told you it said.” He twisted her braid into a rose and held his hand out for pins. She took them from a gilded box on her dressing-table and shoved them into his palm.

 

“Armitage.”

 

He held the pins between his teeth as he worked with one. “He congratulated us on our anniversary.”

 

“ _What else_?”

 

Hux pinned the rose in place, tucking stray edges beneath and fixing it at the base of her skull. “If you were privy to the contents of my letter, sweetling, they would be addressed to _you_ and not me.”

 

He could never tell her. Her House had very nearly fallen apart, and she had suffered as her father had failed to navigate the sea of intrigue that followed. It would sicken her, and he was loathe to even speak the words to describe it.

 

“He mentioned the Tourneys. He wonders if it is not time that Arkanis host them.”

 

“And will we?”

 

“No.” He slid the last pin into place and kissed the top of her head. “Now. Perfect.”

 

Phasma was outside the door when they emerged to break their fast, hulking in her steel plate. In her gauntleted hand he saw the letter he had sent with Rose, and he nodded. She nodded back. “My lord,” she said, “my lady.” She had shorn fair hair and piercing eyes, and leaned on a halberd with an edge that could cut the eyes merely from gazing.

 

“She’s so frightening,” Rey muttered, when they were out of earshot. Despite her grievances she slid her arm around his. “I wish she would wear a helmet – or _leave._ ”

 

“Phasma is brutally efficient. She could have three heads and cat’s ears and I would keep her here. Though I don’t expect you to understand that.”

 

She glared at him.

 

The halls of the keep were high and well-lit, both from candlelight and from the sun streaming through the high windows. Along its walls were tapestries detailing battles long since won, ancient victories, and famed knights now rotting. The great hall was high and bustling, flutes wailing and lutes thrumming from all four corners. The walls here were hung high with great banners – the fox and that _blasted_ blue stag. Rey looked between him and the stag as they went to the dais. The council members were already seated – the dress debacle had made them _late_ – and they stood and bowed and uttered _my lord_ s and _my lady_ s.

 

Rey ate like a beast starved. Not unmannerly in her fashion, but unusual in the amount that she could stomach. Hux could scarcely keep down water and small plums at this hour of the morning – this particular morning he could hardly eat half – but Rey ate toasted brown bread, veined cheese, ham roasted with cloves, gooseberries, porridge drowned in butter and honey. Hux sipped water, halfway between disgust and horrific, unbidden affection.

 

“My lord,” he heard Palpatine call from the end of the dais. “My lord, you have not forgotten about the meeting of the council, I hope?”

 

“I do not forget,” Hux said, without looking away from Rey. The hall was loud enough that she could speak to him at a normal pitch without having to lean in and whisper and arouse suspicion.

 

“Don’t you think that you ought to tell them?” Rey murmured, lip curling. “About the letter?”

 

“Be quiet,” Hux said, wiping a spot of non-existent dirt from her cheek.

 

“No.”

               

“Be quiet,” he repeated, “or you will not attend this council at all. You will sit in your chamber and embroider like a girl not yet flowered. Is that what you want?”

 

She fell silent, seething, and wrenched her head away from his hand in full view of all who cared to look. She would not look at him for the rest of the morning, staring straight ahead or down at her plate with watery eyes. Hux’s stomach clenched. He wished, somewhere, that he could withhold the sharp words, catch them before they flew out, but often he found them leaving his lips before he could even think to stop them.

 

He wished many things besides that. He wished that his cock would not stay so limp, so lifeless, during their furtive attempts to do as wedded couples did. She was his wife, and he her husband. He knew well that she was beautiful. She had wide, fluttering brown eyes like a doe and a button nose and soft pink lips that curled into gentle smiles. She had pert little breasts and rosy nipples, a rear like two pink apples, a thatch of dark hair between her legs – he knew well the effects of her on his body when alone – how many times had he pumped himself dry thinking of her? - but _with_ her _\--_

 

He was protective of her, even so. She was barely nineteen and as bad-tempered as he was as at her age, bad humours exacerbated by Hux’s inability to afford her any more than handfuls of jewels and sharp kisses and his infrequent head between her legs.

 

_Father’s fault, of course,_ he thought. _All those bright ideas ---_

Rey did not come with him to the meeting of the council. When he offered her his arm as he stood to leave the great hall once they had eaten, she ignored him entirely and stalked away, her handmaid close at her heels. That had been a sharp shard of glass to swallow. He forced himself to pull it down deep, as he did with everything else.

 

He would have a dress made, he decided, and a new coterie of jewels to grace her throat, her fingers, the lobes of her ears. Stags would dance in tar-dark lace and she would be radiant in tourmaline samite silks with argentite brocade. A net of silvery chains, nestled with sapphire and moonstone, would lace about her neck.

 

The council chamber was small and cramped and smelled of dust. The rushes upon its floor, Hux was certain, had not been changed in a century, and the tiny windows allowed little light. Even the candles on the long dark table and the sconces on the walls emitted only a faint glow, as though something within the room was pervading it with perpetual darkness.

 

The others sat with wine, careful to keep their elbows off of the dusty surface. Hux declined wine and sat at the head. He made a mental reminder to have this room scorched in its filthy entirety. He listened to them drone, mind elsewhere.

 

“My lord?”

 

He came back to himself. Palpatine was watching him expectantly. “I said, my lord, that your lord father’s messenger mentioned the Tourneys-“

 

_The Tourneys. A waste of an entire summer._

 

“Let him mention them,” Hux said, bristling. _I should have sent an arrow through his neck as he rode away._ He sat up. “I have better things with which to occupy my attention than wasting the summer months watching fool knights lance one another.”

 

“But, my lord…” Grievious was a spidery man, tall and thin. “You are aware, of course, that Ser Ren recently returned from Chandrila. His participation-“

 

Hux had little patience for knights, and even less for those that he had never met and heard too much about. Even the guardsmen prattled on about _Ser Ren this_ and _Ser Ren that_ as they stalked the hallways at night. Hux had heard enough; the man was twenty-nine – or thirty, he did not remember – and big like a bear, hulking and girthy with hair like coal and a temperament to match. He had never fallen from his horse and was a Knight of Red Ribbons, and sat as lord of Coruscant for his trouble.

 

Often he heard Phasma gripe to the others about that, her armour clanking – for her Ribbons were merely Blue – and decided that he disliked knights intensely. They spent their lives playing horsey with other grown men and women as though they were children, and for it their were awarded lordships and ladyships and keeps and castles aplenty. Men and women alike were wont to drop their britches and lift their skirts for knights, no matter their disfigurement. Hux had heard that Ser Ren’s face had been split quite in two by a stray lance, once, but that it was the other rider who had been maimed.

 

Grievious leaned on the long table and said, “It would do your relationship with Ser Ren the world of good.”

 

Hux looked at him. “Ser Ren and I have never been in the same room. Anything he has heard of me is from afar, and I him. I care little for what he thinks of our _relationship._ I don’t know the man and frankly, I do not care to begin.”

 

“To host the Tourneys and to have Ser Ren here would bring great recognition to Arkanis.”

 

“Arkanis has all the recognition it needs. Ser Ren is a glorified gladiator.”

 

Palpatine shifted in his seat. “Ser Ren is especially kind to allies in times of strife, my lord,” he said. “You remember Hosnia, surely. Ser Ren ensured that his allies were well-protected.”

 

“And, of course, it would be a wonderful anniversary gift to give your lady wife. A celebration of your marriage,” Amilyn interjected. She didn’t falter under the icy look Hux gave her. “So far removed from any entertainments she could have possibly endured in Stewjon, is it not, my lord?”

 

“What do you imply, Holdo?” he asked.

 

“I imply that, naturally, House Kenobi did not offer Lady Rey the same comforts as she enjoys here. That is plain, is it not? I was led to believe that her marriage to you was House Kenobi’s saving grace.”

 

“You speak far above your station, Holdo. Be grateful that my wife is fond of you, or I would have you cast out.”

 

There was silence in the dim room for a moment. Holdo cleared her throat and turned away, nostrils flaring, and Palpatine ventured, “My lord – _I_ do not wish to speak above my station, but the Tourneys truly would-“

 

“If it will end this meeting any sooner,” Hux snarled, “then make the arrangements.”

 

Rey would not speak to him for days. Thrice he awoke to find her gone, and would happen upon her in her reading-room, or riding her horse around the bailey. The goldsmith had blanched upon seeing Hux’s face, and three days hence a box was brought to their chambers, heavy with the promise of gems.

 

He waited until the evening, until she was clad only in her night-gown and pulling the brush through loose hair. He came, still dressed, to her dressing-table, and placed before her the little wooden box, plain and uncarved to conceal the wonders within.

 

“I don’t want it.” The fire crackled, its light casting shifting shadows across her face.

 

“You don’t know what it is, yet.”

 

“I don’t care what it is. I don’t want to speak to you.”

 

Hux bent forward from where he stood behind her seated form, and flicked the box open.

 

The net of silver chains was linked so finely that they seemed to weigh nothing under the hand. At intervals along its length were studded blue sapphire and pearly moonstone, and at its base hung a single, heavy sapphire, cut like a teardrop. It all _glittered,_ the firelight licking at with a thousand glowing tongues.

 

“Is this your apology?” Rey asked. “For ruining my dress?”

 

“This is a gift,” Hux said tersely. “I should have taken you to the meeting of the council, but for that pile of rags I will not offer a single word. _That_ itself should be clear.”

 

“I sent it to the seamstress. She’ll sew it up and it will be as good as new.”

 

“Then I’ll slice it into tea-towels, and you can lay them under your porcelain plates.”

 

Her eyes in the mirror were aflame. “I hate you.”

 

He was already reaching for the jewels, and ignored her protests as he swiftly pulled up her hair and laid the piece to her chest with a flat, gloved hand.

 

“Hold your hair up.”

 

She scowled, but obeyed. Hux fastened the clasp at the nape of her neck. The jewels twinkled so finely about her throat. He would order the dress to be made, sapphire samite to match the sapphires she wore now, and her radiance would far surpass her tenacity.

 

Rey stared at herself in the mirror, unmoving. He didn’t move his hand from her chest, and he felt the pace of her heart begin to quicken.

 

                “You _are_ a spoiled girl,” Hux murmured. “Dressed in the finest gems that money can buy. Do they not please you, sweetling?” The tip of a gloved forefinger traced the length of the largest sapphire, and he watched how the facets of the gem cast cerulean light against the dark leather. The jewels were exceptionally blue against the white of her skin.

 

                Her chest rose and fell shallowly beneath the linen of her nightgown, small breasts shadowed and nipples clearly taut in the light of the flames. She leaned into the touch, gloved as it was. “You must tell me,” he said softly, “if they displease you. I shall have the goldsmith that made the chains whipped, and the jeweller that cut the gems flayed.” He bent to brush his lips against the sapphire hanging from her ear, the hide of his jodhpurs creaking gently.

 

                She said nothing, never once looking away from his reflection.

 

                “Spoiled little thing,” he whispered. “You would have me drown you in jewels. So be it. Gems and gowns will be the death of us both.” His lips barely brushed the downy nape of her neck, and she shivered, though her body went rigid.

 

                Moments like this were soft, fragile – thin like spring ice balanced precariously on a bending leaf. In these thin and uncertain moments it seemed almost as though they _could,_ and _would._

 

                The little doe reared, face flushing. “I’d have you drown in your own _blood-_ “

 

                “ _Enough_!” His voice was sharp, bouncing off of the tapestried walls, and he stood. She stood, too, rising up with a face as scarlet as his banners.

 

                He glowered, nostrils flaring. Rey drew back her hand to slap him and he caught her wrist deftly, gripping so that she cried out. She went to slap him with the other. In this foray she succeeded, and Hux’s head snapped to the side. He felt blood bloom hot in his cheek, stinging white where her ring had caught him, and yanked her hard against him so that their chests collided.

 

                “Your insolence,” he said through his teeth, “will _always_ be testimony to your low birth.”

 

                She spat in his face. “As will yours, _bastard._ ”

 

                He felt his fist clench of its own accord and loosened it of his. _No. Not her._ Hux inhaled slowly, never once taking his eyes from hers. He lifted a gloved hand – she winced but did not shy away for fear of being struck – and wiped her saliva from his cheek, and then pulled both gloves off one by one.

               

“You will disrobe. You will lie on the bed and part your legs _. Now_.”

 

                “ _Choke,”_ she snapped, eyes on his lips, hips shifting, and Hux caught her by the jaw.

 

               “But leave the jewels. I want you to glitter, my pearl.”

 

                Her wails echoed long and high through their chambers, low begs of _more, Armitage, I hate you, I hate you, more, **please** , _until his jaw ached and his fingers had pruned and she could bear it no longer.

 

               

 

               

 

 

 

 


	2. The Den

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo of Ren accepts an invitation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: No One Walks Away From Me | Ramin Djawadi. Link - https://open.spotify.com/track/0r1Xk2o6N4HgQNvMGMsokF?si=Pq0zE-SHTeqvKCTEfMeWNA

                                                  

 

 

 

_Three Moon-Turns After the Acceptance of the Tourneys at Arkanis_

 

 

 

“A letter for you, my lord,” Mitaka stammered.

 

                “From where?”

 

                The sun _glared_ in the white-blue sky _._ The great hall was hot. The high windows brought sunlight streaming in, audacious and searing, and every foolish courtier that had insisted upon covering themselves in beaded doublets and heavy dresses was glistening and damp with sweat. Kylo had refused to partake. His tunic was dark and light in weave, and his britches the same, and the cold air coming in from the low door to the kitchen kept him cool. He cared not if he looked a peasant, leaning back with his legs extended and crossed, head resting on a big fist. He was twice the size of any man in the room, both in height and in bulk. They could say it to his face – chest, really – if they had any comment at all.

 

                Upon the high walls, the black wolf of Ren fluttered.

 

                “Arkanis, my lord. It’s stamped with the red fox.”

 

                Kylo made an intense sound. “Open it. Read it.”

 

                The man’s white hands shook. The message was written on fine cream paper, and the seal was so precisely embossed that the wax scarcely bulged over the boundaries of the stamp. The rustling of the paper seemed ever-loud in the now-silent court. Every soul paused to listen, necks and ears straining,

 

                “ _To the Lord of Coruscant, Ser Ren of the Red,”_ Mitaka called, voice trembling and high, “ _I, Sheev Palpatine, High Steward of the House of Hux, cordially extend to you and your retinue an invitation to the Tourneys at Arkanis, to be held and hosted from summer’s dawn to summer’s end, in the Fifth Age of the Star and Fifth Month of the Moon.”_

 

                This _throne,_ this _lord’s chair_ – Kylo could scarcely call it such – barely gave him room to breathe. He could feel the stone edges pressing uncomfortably into the sides of his big body. His back ached. When Mitaka paused to look at him, Kylo cleared his throat, frowning so that the man would continue.

 

                “ _L-Lord Armitage of Hux and Lady Rey of Kenobi await with great hope your prestige and presence at the court of Arkanis.”_

 

The too-small throne began to vex him so much that he stood and began to pace, sending any remaining colour in Mitaka’s face draining down his white neck. He finished, “ _Stars go with you all,_ ” lowered the letter, and looked at his lord.

 

                “Who is this ‘Lady Rey’?” Kylo asked, directed towards whoever would answer him. “

 

                Kaydel said, from her place at the foot of the dais, “Hux’s young wife, my lord. Their marriage saved House Kenobi from the bogs.”

 

                Kylo turned on his heel. “Is that so?”

 

                Kaydel’s plate shone dully, even in the bright streaming sun. It clanked softly as she moved, shifting her weight from her left foot to her right. No finer lordsguard, Kylo was sure, had ever held place in Coruscant. “They say she has a face like a doe, my lord, and a temperament to match.” She guarded him and scarcely joined the Knights at the edge of the dais. Kylo gave them a sideways glance, bristling all with dark plate and hidden swords. Helms were forbidden within the confines of the hall, and so their faces were exposed, scars and bruises alike.

 

                “I see,” Kylo mused. He held out his hand for the letter and was given it. The writing was neat and precise. He gazed at it for merely a moment, and handed it right back.

 

                “She _is_ said to be especially beautiful, my lord,” Mitaka agreed, trembling. “But she is wed.”

 

                Kylo cocked an eyebrow at him, and there rose a soft chuckle from the courtiers. Colour returned in bruised-pride-pink to Mitaka’s cheeks. “That’s never stopped our lord before,” one of the Knights bawled, slapping her knees, and a full guffaw arose around the entire court. Kylo dared smile. Mitaka’s face went puce.

 

                “My lord,” Mitaka stuttered, “the balance between houses is especially _delicate,_ and to upset it would be –“

 

                He drew himself up, chest swelling like a show-peacock. Mitaka shook as he came closer, looming over him. “What do you take me for, Mitaka?” Kylo asked him, in a mocking show of offense and indignance. “Do you think I mean to ride into Arkanis and – _ride_ Lord Hux’s lady wife?”

 

The court was thick with snickering, muttering.

 

                “My _lord,_ ” the man gasped, “of _course_ not, I would _never-_ “

 

                “Or, worse still, have her ride _me_? A doe riding a wolf? What abominations they would make together.” Kylo tutted as though he were reprimanding a child. “Perhaps you ought to think on other things. Your duties, perhaps, rather than … _delicate_ maids.”

 

                As Mitaka returned to his seat, scarlet before the entire court, Kylo gazed about, searching for his physician. There was an empty seat where he should have been. “Where is Jinn?” he asked Kaydel, voice low so that Mitaka would not hear, as the sound of dining courtiers grew louder and the lutes began to play once more.

 

                “A rider came this morning, my lord. She asked to see Jinn as a matter of urgency.”

 

                “From where?” he asked her.

 

                “Arkanis.”

 

                “Arkanis?”

 

                “Shall I seek him out, my lord?”

 

                “No. Seek out the rider. Don’t make yourself known. Find me in my rooms when you know.”

 

                She nodded once, and swept away through the door to the kitchens, neatly sidestepping a serving-girl with her arms full of plates.

 

                He found himself oddly appalled at Qui-Gon Jinn’s audacity. Of old the physician would sit near him on the dais and give counsel. His hands had stitched and soothed and sutured countless wounds of Kylo’s flesh. Mitaka said, voice shrill, “Do you accept the invitation, my lord?”

 

                “To Arkanis. Of course.” The court quietened as they heard him speak aloud. “I am eager to feast my eyes on Hux’s little doe. Perhaps he’ll let me hunt her.”

 

                Laughter rose. Mitaka went white, and red, and white again.

 

                His chambers were _hot_ when he went to them, though he opened all the windows and fanned himself with a letter. He gave up and took off all of his clothes, pondering. He called a handmaid for a lukewarm bath and scrubbed himself.

 

                He had been in many tourneys; some at the keeps of lesser lordlings, some at the homes of knights-turned-lord like himself, and some at the castles of those blooded by kings. The Summer Tourneys, however – he had never attended those, even when his own mother hosted them in Alderaan. A lordless knight could do as he pleased and attend whatever he liked. It was different now.

 

                Clean and damp, he threw himself onto the bed and stared, naked, up at the canopy. There came a knock on the door. “Who?” he yawned, tilting his head back.

The door opened. “Only me, my lord.” He heard the clank of Kaydel’s armour, the thud of the door as it closed behind her.

 

                “Did you find Jinn?” he asked her, stretching. She observed his naked body with about as much fervour as a stone. This meant little; he had been naked in front of Kaydel half a hundred times. She had eyes only for women. Kylo could scarcely blame her.

               

                “In his chambers, my lord. I said nothing, as you asked, but I listened. The rider is a lordsguard from Arkanis. She wanted poison, on behalf of her lord.”

 

                _What?_ He stood, bare. Kaydel’s gaze dropped and rose again. “Which lord?” he asked.

 

                “Armitage Hux. His lordsguard sent for essence of nightshade from Jinn.”

 

                “And who is the lordsguard?”

 

                “Bera Phasma.” Kaydel shifted her weight. “You knocked her from her mare in Takodana, some years ago.”

 

                “ _That_ one? I hadn’t a clue she was in Arkanis. I thought she was _dead._ ”

 

                “Very much alive, my lord. Hux sent her with instructions and with money for Jinn. For poison.”

 

                He inhaled, chest rising, and exhaled. “And who, pray,” he said, “does Hux meant to kill?”

 

                Kaydel hesitated before she said, “His father, my lord.”

 

                Kylo faltered. Kaydel’s eyes went to the floor, the fireplace, anywhere but his face.

 

                “Has he no physician of his own? Or is Arkanis too wet for nightshade?” Kylo pulled a towel from the back of a chair and squeezed the dripping ends of his hair with it.

 

                “I don’t know. Shall I put an end to it, my lord?” she asked.

 

                His own father was dead some five years. Treated like a bastard in his own home in Chandrila, Kylo had insisted that their differences be resolved in the field. Han had lost the fight.

 

                Kylo waved it away, clearing his throat. “If he wants to kill his father, let him. Men who kill their fathers often share a great affinity, do they not?”

 

                “I wouldn’t know, my lord.” She leaned against the doorframe. “But if the poison were to be traced _here-“_

 

                “Bah.” He turned around to face the sun. “Doubtful. Most men that kill their fathers are too secretive. Poison reeks of deceit. It’s too easily sniffed out. Kill them in fair _combat,_ and it’s a different story. That smells of victory, don’t you think?”

 

                “Of course.”

 

                “Let him have his nightshade. Let me deal with him, when the time comes.” Kylo towelled his hair again, threw back his head, and winced as his cold damp hair hit his shoulders. “Though it will be most odd if the host himself drops dead at the tourneys and leaves his young wife cold and alone.”

 

                “Most odd,” she echoed, smiling.

 

                The sun was warm on his damp skin, made warmer as it streamed through the glass. “We leave for Arkanis in seven days,” he told her. “Go, prepare. Tell the others, too.”

               

                She nodded. Kylo inhaled sharply.

 

                “Wait.”

 

                Kaydel turned. “My lord?”

 

                “I’ve changed my mind. Bring her here. The lordsguard.”

 

                “ _Here,_ my lord?”

 

                “Tell her I have need of her.”

 

                “And if she has left already, my lord?”

 

                “Ride after her. Take the Knights and don’t let her leave until we have spoken.” He turned to look at her. “If I am not here, wait with her. Go.”

 

 

\---------------------------------------

 

                He found Finn in the stableyard.

 

The yard itself was dry and warm and dusty and stank of hot horse. A fly buzzed past his ear. He could hear, beyond, the ringing of hammers on metal as horseshoes were carefully wrought. Grooms led horses here and there, their hooves _clopping._

 

Starkiller whinnied and scraped the ground when she saw him, pulling against the reins where she was hobbled to her stall. The stablehands bowed and murmured odd _my lord_ s when he passed them. One had taught Kaydel’s white stallion to bow his head, and Kylo paused to watch it.

 

                “Your name?” he asked the groom. She was a slender girl of perhaps twenty, with inky hair in a braid down her back and slanted eyes and hay on the front of her britches. _Pretty._ He observed her.

 

                “Paige, my lord.”

 

                “You taught it to bow?”

 

                “Yes, my lord.” She wasn’t shy of him, never looking away from his face. The horse nosed against his pockets in search of sweets.

 

                “Do it again,” Kylo ordered. Paige took from her pocket a piece of carrot and held it just below the white beast’s chest. It dropped to a knee, one leg outstretched, and bowed its great head to the floor.

 

                He smiled. “ _Clever_ beast,” he said, watching as Paige fed it the carrot. “Are you squired?”

 

                “No, my lord, not yet.”

 

                Kaydel had no squire, he knew, often refusing one in favour of protecting him. “Do you know whose horse this is, Paige?”

 

                “He belongs to Kaydel Ko Connix, my lord.”

 

                “Hasn’t she ever asked you?” he inquired, though of course he knew not.

 

                “No, my lord, and it’s not my place to ask.”

               

                “No,” Kylo agreed. He brushed a hand down the horse’s face and came away with his palm full of dead white hairs. He shook them off. “Though if she asked, would you accept?”

 

                “Yes, my lord, of course.”

 

“Then you’re to be her squire,” he decided abruptly, and the girl faltered. “Tell her as much when you see her again, and if she gripes tell her to gripe with me. Is that clear?”

 

                “Yes, my lord.”

 

                “There are to be Tourneys at Arkanis this summer, to which we have been invited.” He watched as her eyes widened. “Kaydel will joust along with the rest of the knights. She will have need of a squire.”

 

                “Oh – my _lord,_ I’d be _honoured-_ “

 

                “Have you been?” he interrupted her. “To Arkanis?” He often found that serving-hands and stable-hands were rather well-travelled, hefted from one keep to the other when the hands of power changed.

 

                “No, my lord, but – but-“ There was a pack sitting on the hay behind her. She turned, bent – Kylo eyed her behind - and retrieved a fold of cream paper and held it out to him. The horse peered at her, sniffing. “My sister, my lord, she’s handmaid to the Lady of Arkanis.”

 

                _The doe._ He took the letter. The writing was a scrawl, but he could make out the words _Lady Rey_ and _kind_ and _Hux_ and _dress._ “Well, then,” he exclaimed, giving it back to her, “it’s only fitting, is it not?”

 

                She would prove, at least, entertaining. Kylo had little time for serving-girls and boys - always _busy,_ always running somewhere – but grooms and stable-hands were different, often from rough towns, and so they were strong and – _fiery._ It was most pleasing to have someone to roll in bed with after tourneys, be they lord or stablehand, man or woman.

 

                “Don’t, girl, stop it,” he heard Finn complain. When he turned his head, Starkiller was nickering, pulling hard at the reins. His mare was eighteen hands high and as black as pitch. The squire struggled to pull her back as she turned to approach her master, whickering eagerly.

 

                He went to her. She nuzzled his face, mouthing softly, butting her head down against his shoulder. “Starkiller, stop,” Finn insisted. He was young and handsome and capable – twenty-one – with dark skin and broad shoulders.

 

                “Did you miss me, sweet girl?” Kylo asked the mare, and her tongue came out to lick up his arm, almost in agreement. “Have you behaved yourself, darling?”

 

                “Starkiller’s been very _badly_ -behaved, ser. My lord,” Finn corrected himself. Kylo said nothing. It was not often that a squire found themselves in service to both a knight _and_ a lord.

 

                “ _Have_ you?” Kylo kissed the white star between Starkiller’s eyes and patted her cheek, stepping back to appraise her. She tried to go with him, nickering, but Finn held her back.

 

                “Might be she’s been missing her master, my lord.”

 

“Perhaps. Hopefully she remembers her manners when we go to the Tourneys.”

 

                “The Tourneys, se- my lord?”

 

                “Yes.” Kylo rubbed his mare’s shaggy chin. “An invitation from Arkanis came this morning. Have you ever been there?”

 

                “No, my lord.” There was a horse-brush in Finn’s hand, thick with dead hair. “I heard that it rains often.”

 

                “Yes, terribly _wet,_ but then so are the maids. The summers are rather fine. You may take a wage when we arrive and when I have no need of you, you may visit the town.”

 

                Finn’s eyes went wide. “ _Truly,_ my lord?”

 

                “Yes, truly. I have no desire to see you gawping at high ladies when you could have low ladies gawp at you in whorehouses, and for very little coin. I won’t have to look at you, then, will I?”

 

                “No, my lord,” the boy murmured, but his cheeks were dark with anticipation, and Kylo could see the smile he tried to keep hidden quite to himself.

 

                “On the condition, of course, that there _are_ whorehouses in Arkanis. I have heard that Lord Hux is a rather steely man. Perhaps he has outlawed the joy of it to spite the townsfolk.”

 

                Starkiller whickered as Finn patted her cheek. “Every town has _whorehouses,_ my lord. Even the finest ones. Some have boys, and some have girls, and some have both.”

 

                “You make yourself known where they host both, I presume.”

 

                Finn blushed.

 

                “Don’t redden so, it doesn’t become you.”

 

                “Beg pardon, my lord.”

 

                “Is there shame in it, for you?” Kylo asked him. He watched as the squire brushed the dead hairs from Starkiller’s dark coat.

 

                “Some, my lord.”

 

                “There needn’t be. If you were on a hunt, and you had the chance to hunt a boar _and_ a stag, would you pick only one?”

 

                Finn raised his great dark eyes to Kylo’s face, uncertain.

 

Kylo said, “Life is a hunt. Hunting only stags so that your hall is full of antlers is no great feat. It gets boring. And you know how I loathe boredom.”

 

He patted Starkiller’s taut neck. She blinked at him, huffing. He swept the mare’s mane from her eyes and gave Finn a searching look. “You seem awfully educated on the subject of whorehouses.”

 

                The boy blushed darker. “I grew up in one, my lord.”

 

                “I see. That gives you far more right than any to speak on them.” Finn had been his squire for four years and he had not known _that._ Starkiller’s bristly lips mouthed softly at his arm, hot breath ghosting through his clothes. “You may try to wheedle kisses out of serving-girls and cup-boys, if you so wish, but don’t deface my name with foolish doings, Finn.”

 

                “Yes, my lord. Oh – perhaps you’d like to try the new saddle, my lord?”

 

                He hadn’t noticed. He examined it - well-oiled black leather – running a hand over its surface, smooth and taut and _big_ to fit him. He had broken the cantle of his last on a hunt and smashed himself painfully over the pommel. Kylo raised his leg and planted his left foot in the stirrup, gripping the top of Starkiller’s saddle.

               

                “We can have it remade, if it doesn’t suit, my lord,” Finn told him, stepping back.

 

                Kylo hauled himself up atop of the mare, and she lurched beneath him. It was comfortable. He shifted his hips and gave Starkiller’s reins a tug when she made to walk. “Have my things packed away when I return but leave out Starkiller’s brushes. I’ll groom her myself.”

 

                “Yes, my lord.”

 

                As he crossed the stableyard once more, the white horse bowed again.

 


	3. Wolf, Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ser Ren comes to Arkanis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6-month hiatus. Whew.
> 
> Chapter Theme: Sibylla | Harry Gregson-Williams.  
> Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/3RsRRjmEkLjphvbXGGTra7?si=_B2DkjtXSc6_swJfxXrDrw

 

                                             

 

              Rey didn’t loathe her needlework – often she took pride in it – but loathed when he was there to see her do it. She could almost feel the smugness oozing from his pores. She would sit at the fire and sew while Armitage busied himself with laws and lay-appeals. _She_ wanted those. She was as much the lord of Arkanis as he was. Rey slumped, irritated. She knew what he would say – “you’re far too young,” – and to hear it would make her want to screech and tip his desk over so that all his precious books and papers would scatter and fly across the floor.

 

                _Far too young._ Twenty-two was thought old enough to interfere in court affairs. She had three years to wait. If they dragged on as this past year had, she’d drive herself mad waiting.

 

                Rey dug the needle hard into the cambric instead, pretending it was his eye.

 

                He was _here,_ though. The evening was cool and wet, and he was at his desk. Often it was only on hot days – rare as they were in Arkanis – that he retreated to the shade, be it his study or the shade of walled gardens. He had pale and delicate skin that freckled and burned. Rey rather liked all the freckles, but a sunburnt Armitage was a foul and irritable Armitage, and if he was snappish she would snap back. Armitage would shout and she wouldn’t speak to him for days upon days. He would do what he always did and bring her another necklace or a dress or a dagger with a jewelled pommel to be hidden in her garter.

 

                She wished he was the type of husband that would let his wife rub lavender oil into his sunburnt back, and glared at him for his deviation from that so desirable of norms. She wasn’t wearing shoes or a court dress, and swung her stockinged legs underneath her plain gown. Any gown was plain compared to the ones that Armitage bought her. He had seen her dressing and made a face, as though disgusted at the plainness of it. Rey had around her neck a single, drop diamond on a thin gold chain – a shimmering middle finger to him whenever he looked at it.

 

                Rey called for cheese and bread and grapes and ate as loudly as she could, chewing like a dog so that Armitage twitched in annoyance. “I’m bored,” she told him.

 

                “Then read a book.”

 

                “No. I want to go riding.”

 

                “It’s too dark for that. You’ll break your neck and your horse’s legs.”

 

                _What do you care?_ Petulantly, she said, “But I _want_ to go.”

 

                “Then go riding,” he said tersely.

 

                “I want you to come, too.”

 

                “I’m busy.”

 

                In the silence that followed, Rey crunched grapes loudly between her teeth until Armitage lifted his copper head and glared at her. She stared plaintively back at him. He turned back slowly to his letters.

 

                “You’re always busy.”

 

                Voice dripping with venom, he muttered, “A busy lord. It must shock you.”

 

                “You should at least tell me what you’re writing.”

 

                “Oh? Then you should share your secret letters with me, then, should you not? Or perhaps your secret books that you hide away in your smallclothes drawer when you think I’m not looking?”

 

                Rey went pink. “I hope you don’t presume to rummage through my smallclothes drawer, you dirty beast.”

 

                “They’re your business. This is mine.”

 

                “That’s different. Those are personal. _These_ are matters of court-“

 

                Armitage dipped the quill into the inkwell. “No. Not these.”

 

                Rey peered at the way he wrote. He wrote with admirable penmanship. His letters were printed with the neatest script – a sharp copperplate – while her own handwriting was a scribble. She cared little for it. Armitage paused for a moment, as though he was considering something.

               

                “Can you keep a secret?” Armitage asked, and the tip of the quill never stopped moving – _scratch-scratch-scratch_ – across the paper.

 

                Rey watched him. “What kind of secret?”

 

                “A poisonous one,” he said.

 

                That sent a cool bloom of anticipation through her chest. She sat forward.

 

                “Do you remember, last month, when I sent Phasma away on her horse?”

 

                “Yes.”

               

                “I sent her-“ _Scratch-scratch-scratch._ “-to Coruscant.”

 

                “Coruscant,” Rey said, rather feeling like she was a girl at reading-lessons. “For what?”

 

                “Nightshade.”

 

                Nightshade was beautiful to behold, but deadly. _Like him,_ she supposed. Its berries were sweet. Five could kill a grown man in minutes. The berries were rarely eaten on purpose – when swallowed, they raised the heartbeat and induced a black and wild delirium. The hands numbed, bowels loosened, and blood spewed from the mouth. That was it.

 

                Its _essence,_ however, was another matter entirely. Poisoners and assassins kept essence of nightshade – clear, barely sweet, undetectable - in tiny vials. All it took was a single drop in a glass of sweet mead or wine or even a child’s cup of milk. Rey shuddered at the thought. There were stories she had heard that sent icy, nightshade-clear drops of fear down her spine.

 

                “Why?” Rey asked.

 

                Armitage had enemies. That was nothing to make a great hubbub about – anyone as powerful and as merciless as he was bound to have blades thirsting for his neck – and even in the short year that they had been wed, she knew from her own scheming and Rose’s whispers that Armitage had dispatched nuisances that pricked, thorny, at his side.

 

                But he did it _himself._ There were always hushed conversations with Phasma, and Rey would hear tell of a precious clutch of nightshade pruned from the secret reaches of the walled gardens where even _she_ was forbidden to intrude.

 

                “I was made aware of another nuisance.”

 

                She wondered who the nuisance was. Armitage always said _nuisance, nonsense, little fool –_ it brought to one’s mind a picture of a near invincible fly, buzzing irritably about one’s face and trying to get at one’s dinner; not a living, breathing human being with blood and fears that would scream when stuck or stabbed.

 

               “Ser Ren?”

 

              He _laughed_ – Rey stared, shocked – though the sound was low, careful not to spill into great humour. “Ser _Ren,_ ” he repeated, and she stared at the lingering smile. “If I was going to rid myself of Ser Ren, my darling, I wouldn’t use something as gentle as nightshade.”

 

              “You said you’ve never met him.” There was an odd feeling in her stomach at the word _darling._

 

              “I haven’t. But I’ve heard enough to know that I dislike him immensely.”

 

               Rey leaned on the edge of her seat.

 

               Armitage said, “Ser Ren’s physician knew your father.”

 

                “Jinn,” Rey said. “Qui-Gon Jinn.”

 

                “Yes.”

 

                “Why didn’t you send for nightshade from Grievous?”

 

                “Because Grievous has a mouth as loose as a whore’s britches. It would not do for him to betray us, not yet.”

 

                Rey faltered. “Not _yet_?”

 

                Armitage always called Grievous a spider. Rey agreed with him. Grievous was tall and unpleasantly thin and went _cough-cough-cough_ all day and night. He walked with a wide, slow stride at times of rest. In a rush he scuttled like one of those great hairy dark spiders that crawled in through open windows in the hope of escaping the rain, only to be squashed by a roll of parchment or Rose’s sweeping-brush or under Rey’s shoes. Armitage didn’t like when she did that, and so she did it as much as she could.

 

                This – nightshade from another demesne entirely - meant, Rey knew, that this was particularly thorny nuisance, a great thick wrap of vines, to be carefully stepped around and examined before deciding where to cut.

 

               Armitage couldn’t use his own shears.

 

               Armitage dipped the quill, scratched it across the parchment. “No,” he repeated, face tense, “not yet. When the time comes I shall set some weak spider-trap for him to walk himself into, and I’ll have his head on a spike. But for now, he lives. We need a physician, do we not?”

 

                She stood up, skirts rustling. “What are you writing? Tell me.”

 

                Armitage sat back and appraised the paper. The firelight turned his hair to copper. She dared edge ever closer.

 

                “A letter to my lord father. There were several drafts. This is the final edit.” He gestured at the edge of the desk. There were five crumpled balls of paper there, blotted all with angry lines of ink and frustrated smudges.

 

                “Your _father,_ ” she murmured, and drew herself up as she realised. _The dress._

               

                Armitage’s jaw went tight, eyeing her realisation with a sharp gaze.

               

                She had _often_ considered killing her own father. He had dragged their House into ruin chasing some slip of a slave boy, long ago, and upon losing him chased more and more. But she never truly _meant_ it.

 

                Rey asked, “Why are you writing letters to him if you want to kill him?”

 

                He paled a moment, as if shocked that she knew. Where he had been thawing before, he turned to ice again. “Go to bed,” he said, face frosty.

 

                “Armitage.”

 

                She laid a hand on his doubleted shoulder. He went still. She could feel the heat of him against her palm. “Go to _bed,_ ” Armitage repeated.

 

               Rey couldn’t quite believe her eyes when she saw a pink flush blooming at his cheeks. She lifted the hand from his shoulder and touched lightly with the tip of a forefinger the new heat on his face.

 

                “I’m your wife.”

 

                He slapped her hand away with sharp white fingers. “You’re a silly little girl.”

 

                Rey wanted to slap him back and throw him from the chair. Once he was on the floor, she would kick him and stamp on him and bloody his face.

 

                Instead, she bent, and kissed the shell of his ear, hand sliding across his doubleted chest. She watched as he put the quill back in its pot, face impassive, and licked a wet stripe along the pale of his sensitive neck.

 

                She felt him shudder, ever so slightly – one less in tune with his body would have missed it – and his cheek reddened even further.

 

                “Please,” Rey whispered. “I _want_ to, _please-_ “

 

                When she tried to pull at the buttons of his doublet, pop them open, he caught hold of her wrists and laid her on the bed. Rey struggled feebly, petulant. Armitage told her, “No,” and freed her briskly of her stockings. Rey watched the white gossamer snake down her legs and onto the floor. When he made to stand and put them on the chair, she hooked her bare foot about the side of his neck and said, “Leave them,” and he did.

 

                She remembered the first time he had done this – when she was fawn-legged and terrified on the eve of their wedding – and remembered how she had stifled tears when she was laid upon her back. Rey squeezed her eyes shut and anticipated pain and blood. She had drawn herself up tight, teeth gritted, when she felt gloved hands push her legs apart, but then cried out in shock and kicked him hard when she felt his _tongue-_

 

                Now, she lay back willingly. Armitage huffed, and the coppery head moved between her thighs. Rey’s head fell back.

It was different now. She liked it – ever so much – and would gladly lie on her back for a century and a day and let him do it.

 

                Often he would touch himself as he did it. Rey learned, early on, that he did not wish for her to touch him _there_ \- he allowed her to pull his hair and kiss him on the mouth and the neck and the chest – but never in that most intimate of places.

 

                She had wondered at first if he felt shame at the size of it – most poorly-endowed men did. Then Rey saw it, once, and it was thatched with hair as red as on his head, and ever so big that she wondered what on earth the matter was. She didn’t dare ask why and didn’t dare try to touch _him_ ; the few times that she had made the attempt, Armitage had withdrawn entirely and stalked away, leaving her where she was.

 

                Rey listening, waiting. He would give a great grunt, body shuddering at the end of the bed. Rey would see the flash of a neat handkerchief, a careful swipe, and then his other hand would come back up to grip at her thigh. It made her want to kick and cry and screech and have a tantrum. It wasn’t _fair._

 

              Outside of their marital bed, Armitage was stiff and hardly affectionate. He would kiss her on the forehead or the cheek but would never linger long, and rarely kissed her lips the way that a woman grown ought to be kissed. When he touched her his hands were gloved more often than not. Rey wanted to be held while she slept, squeezed and kissed and nipped softly, but only in sleep did Armitage grant her wishes, and once he awoke he seemed at odds with what he had done.

 

             At court he was even stiffer, like a dressmaker’s mannequin. Rey often watched jealously at the great dinners they hosted as big bearded lords kissed their ladies’ cheeks and nibbled their ears and secretly fondled them under the table. It was crude, but it was delightful, and she could only dream of having the same delights with _him._

 

            It would never, ever be that easy. She didn’t see it getting any better.

 

**♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘**

 

            Armitage had always told her that knights were foolish. He told her that again now, lacing his boots at the end of the bed. Still-warm and glowing within from the night’s play, she put her head on his shoulder and rubbed her cheek there like a cat. He kept talking and didn’t respond to it. Rey sat up again, irritated. Her hair was just-dry and her skin sweet from an early morning bath. She was in her red robe, having had her hands smacked lightly away from her own armoire and her lady-in-waiting dismissed by Armitage. _I’ll dress you,_ he told her.

 

           “… bloody _ceremony._ That’s all it is,” he grizzled, pulling the laces tight. “Glory, and for what? An overgrown _boy_ that can ride a big horse just like every peasant boy and girl from here to Tatooine.”

 

           He was talking about Ser Ren, she knew. The early bannermen had already ridden through the great gates, the dark wolf of Ren fluttering in the breeze, eyeing the fox and the deer on the walls with a golden gaze.

 

          “Where do you think he is?” she asked.

 

          “Pissing at the edge of the road, I would imagine,” he said bitterly. Rey smiled to herself. He never cursed _quite_ so much as he did when he was talking about knights.

 

           He sat her in her dressing chair and swept her hair out from behind her. Rey watched him in the mirror, playing with a hairpin.

 

         “Did Ser Ren … did he see Phasma?” she asked. “When she went to Coruscant?”

 

          Brusquely, Armitage said, “Yes.”

 

          Rey felt cold for a moment. Armitage brushed through her hair, silent, until any tangled had been pulled free.

 

          “What did he say to her?”

 

          “Nothing of interest. She told him that she was delivering a personal invitation to Jinn.”

 

         “Did he believe her?”

 

          Armitage didn’t answer, mouth tight. He held his hand out for pins again, and she gave them to him. He tugged and braided and pinned and then he said, “He might be a knight, but he isn’t stupid.”

 

             “ _Oh._ ”

 

              She saw his eyes flicker up. “That doesn’t mean he poses a threat.”

 

              “But it doesn’t mean that he’s harmless," she said. 

 

               Rey gave him the hairpiece when he opened his mouth to ask for it. He nearly faltered at her blunt shove.

 

             “Blue?” she heard him ask behind her.

 

             “Yes.” The hairpiece was a sturdy study of an antler, wrought from silver, set with a single cut diamond, as blue and as endless as the cloudless night sky. Rey liked the weight of it, the neat pin and hold.

 

             It was her maiden’s gift. The day she was told she was to be married, while she sat weeping in her chambers in abject terror, a serving-girl had left a silver box silently on her desk. Within, cushioned by sapphire velvet, was her hairpiece, and a note written in flawless script. Rey still had the note, tucked away in a secret book of all the notes and letters that he had ever written her.

 

            “I want to wear my blue brocades,” she told him.

 

            She watched him go to the armoire and reached for a long, dark box on her vanity table, for a vial of scent. She had ten of them, each nestled in its own carefully carved compartment, no wider than Rey’s thumb. Each one was tied about its glass neck with a tiny scrap of coloured ribbon, printed carefully with the scent of its contents. _Lavender, Pine, Moss_ on pale purple; _Peppermint, Rosemary, Clove_ on deep green; _Rose, Basil, Sap_ on dark and vibrant red – Rey couldn’t choose. She let her fingers dance over them a moment, and then fell upon a ribbon of midnight-blue, tucked behind the base of its bottle. She pulled it free and examined it.

 

_Daisy, Sea-Aster, Doe’s-Eye._

             It was sweet, but gently so, not overpowering. It was a regular occurrence at court to walk past a high lady and be quite slapped in the face by the stench of steeped, sugary rose and honeyed lavender. Even Armitage’s mouth would twitch at that, and Rey would see and squeeze his hand and sometimes he would even smile.

 

             She uncorked the vial and dabbed it behind her ears, at the pulse of her neck, her inner wrists, her nipples. Armitage turned back around with the dress to see her with her chest fully exposed, and she heard his breath catch.

 

             They didn’t speak, not even as she dressed, not even as he laced her sapphires about her neck and through her ears, as he slid her stag’s head ring onto her finger. They left and went briskly down the hall, Phasma clanking along behind them and Rose walking alongside Rey. It was busy there – servants darting to and fro, carrying wine and bedding and everything in between – and the great hall was a sea of silks and gems; the court was dressed at its best for the Tourneys, for the arrival of Ser Ren. The games themselves wouldn’t begin for days; there were endless welcomes and alliances and feasts and – _ugh._

             The stained glass in the great hall cast the court every colour of the rainbow, rippling, dappling in the sun. Rey held Armitage’s hand as she was brought to her seat. _He_ looked especially beautiful – imposing – bronze hair immovably neat, dressed all in black with the padded fit of his jerkin the darkest red that Rey had ever seen. Upon his breast, above his heart, was sewn the fox of Hux, leaping within the perfectly ordered pikes of the First Order.

 

             Rey wiggled her fingers expectantly, excited now. The silver stag’s sapphire eyes glimmered. The passion of the night and the gloom of the morning were set aside in her anticipation. Armitage’s hand snaked over hers, resting on the arm of his great chair, and he held it through his glove. Rey wanted in equal measure to slap him and to pull his glove off off and hold his _hand,_ to feel the heat of him that she knew was there and had felt before, despite his great effort to look and sound as cold as a block of ice.

 

            The Council was there on the dais – Palpatine, Grievous, Holdo – and stood when the Lord and Lady of Arkanis came to sit. They seated themselves now, and Rey graciously accepted overblown compliments from all three – “so _graceful,_ my lady, an unimaginable _beauty_ ,” – and sat, watching, waiting. Rose sat below her with the other ladies-in-waiting. Phasma stood at the side of Hux’s chair, halberd glinting.

 

             It reminded her of being a child, sitting on Father’s lap in the great hall, while lords and barons and countesses and knights came to the foot of _their_ dais in Stewjon. Armitage was watching her eyes dart about the hall. He inclined his head ever-so-slightly towards her and asked under the noise of the court, “Excited?” She felt leather-clad fingers squeeze hers. A bastard’s attempt at an apology. He _always_ did this – it was either gifts or the barest hint of softness, affection. Rey felt a streak of anger in her chest; was she not worth more than tight words and unspoken apologises? She slid her hand out of his, mind swelling with second thoughts.

 

               “Maybe,” she said, determined to royally infuriate him.

 

                Rey was eating hazelnuts when the great doors began to creak. Palpatine was up out of his seat in an instant, darting down off the dais to stand before it, back ramrod-straight as he waited. Every soul at court below the dais craned their necks, peering and straining to get a glimpse of the knights.

 

               She heard Rose whisper, “He’s late,” to one of the other ladies-in-waiting.

 

               “Fashionably late,” Rey breathed, poking her with her foot. Rose stifled a giggle.

 

                There were ten of them in all, an entourage of servants and handmaids and footmen behind them. The laymen lingered at the back of court while the knights approached, black-clad and wolf-bannered. The dark wolf of Ren eyed her from the sigils at their breasts, shields, banners.

 

                “My lord,” Palpatine called. “My lady —his Grace, Ser Kylo of Ren of Chandrila; Knight of Red Ribbons; Lord of Coruscant—”

 

                The great tall knight bowed and his fellows bowed alongside him.

 

                Boldly, Rey whispered, “He’s beautiful,” and watched in delight as Armitage’s gloved fingers curled into a fist.

 

                 He _was_ beautiful, and _big._ Armitage was beautiful and tall, too, but where he was sharp-featured and whipcord lean, Ren was a great wide hulk, shoulders stretching under his doublet like a pony under a saddle blanket. He had a long face and a crow’s-beak nose and dark attractive eyes set high in his face. His hair was full of thick curls so black they were almost blue, like a raven’s wing, braided towards the back of his skull and falling loose about his face.

 

                There was a woman by him, armoured like Phasma, with pale ashy hair in a practical knot at the back of her head. Ren raised his head.

 

               “Lady Rey,” he said, and his voice was deliciously deep. “Your beauty precedes you.”

 

               Armitage had once said, offhandedly, “ _If they call you beautiful, tell them that you know. You are. If someone were to call me the Lord of Arkanis, I’d agree with them. Facts are not subject to opinion.”_ He had tried to deliver it as a piece of strict courtly advice, but it had made Rey feel warm and want to squeal. A _compliment._ She’d felt angry afterwards – surely high ladies should not be shocked at compliments from their lord husbands – but in the moment she glowed.

 

                Now, she said, “I know.”

               

               Ser Ren’s mouth – wide and pink with an upper lip like a poacher’s bow - spread in a white smile. A chuckle rose up from the court. Rey watched him extend his hand backwards towards the black knights, not looking away from her, and say, “Bring them.”

 

             Three came forth. One dragged forward a great chest, rattling on silver chains, and another held a black case in her hands, thin and smooth, and it was her that Ren beckoned forward first, taking it from her.

 

              “Lady Rey, would you join me?” he asked her, hand out. He scarcely looked at Armitage. Rey saw his chest swelling from the corner of her eye. One of the knights – a woman with her head shaved like a lice-ridden child – was coming up the aisle of the hall with a _horse._ It was tall and white and thick-hooved, its mane falling in snowy curls to the top of its shoulder. Its bridle was studded all with silver and white – _moonstones_ – and Rey rose to her feet in delight.

 

              “ _Oh,_ ” she breathed, enamoured, and a meaty hand came out to take hers. Ren was twice her size, three heads taller, and even in the bright light she felt shaded by his great shadow. His hand was ungloved and warm, rough like a farmer’s rather than a lord’s. The gentle rasp of it sent lightning bolts up Rey’s arm.

 

 _A **horse** in the **hall.**_ She could feel Armitage’s rage. She was wary of it relieving itself on the rushes. “She’s three,” she heard Ren say, and the horse snuffed at her. “You can ride her to war.”

 

                “I’ve never ridden to war before,” she told him, stroking the white mare’s face.

 

                He beamed, dazzling.

 

                The next gift was an ermine-lined dress of ocean-green silk and chiffon, and she could see by its stitch that it would be gentler on the hips and the arms than those she was used to. The petticoats were seafoam-pale, and Ren presented her with a matching set of jewels – aventurine and opal, shimmering opaquely – and a white wolf to be pinned in her hair, its sharp eyes the colour of wild water.

 

               “You spoil us, ser,” Armitage said, and his voice was tight.

 

               “What are new friends for, only to spoil, my lord?” Ren asked him.

 

                The court was cleared before long – floor swept, new rushes laid, great tables and benches carried. Outfits were changed – clothes more befitting of one that was going to be eating – and the kitchen, Rey knew, would begin to heat up.

 

               They went to dinner when the sun began to set. Rey was hungry by then, having spent the last hour admiring herself in the mirror, Ser Ren’s white wolf drawing her hair back, sea-silks drawn tight about the crest of her waist but flowing over her stomach, her hips. The gems shimmered around her neck and at her ears. Armitage’s eyes glowed with rage, but he said nothing.

 

               The smell hit her, rich and heady, before she even entered the hall. Rose followed her in, and their noses were overcome with the hoppy smell of beer and ale, the long aroma of spiced meat, and the heat of the hall. People bowed and murmured _my lady, my lord,_ and other were already raucously drunk. Rey didn’t mind that. She had never _been_ drunk. She had tried, on her wedding night, but Armitage took the wine from her hands and didn’t let her drink it.

 

               She’d been irritated at him, but now she was glad he’d done it.

 

               Ren’s knights were unhelmed and unarmoured now. She saw that they were women all, some with hair as long as her own, some with tattoos curling about their faces, some marred with scars. Armitage was soon waylaid by Palpatine, rabbiting on about _alliance_ this and _army_ that. Rey felt an big hand on her own amid it all.

 

               “Lady Rey,” she heard. _Ren._ “You dazzle me.”

 

 _He_ dazzled _her._ His dark curls were loose now. She could have reached up to touch them. His clothes were not simple and nor were they intricate; his double was dark leather, belted about his wide waist, and she could see above his heart a carefully-sewn wolf, its eyes sharp and yellow. There was a white wolf – her hairpin’s twin - at his knuckles, too, set on a heavy gold ring.

 

                The gold-threaded, azure cushions on her seat on the dais seemed to throb with life – _here, here!_ – and she ignored them. She let Ren lead her to the end of the dais instead, and every knight bent their head and bowed. She could feel hundreds of eyes on her. The heat of Ren’s big hand made them feel quite as though they didn’t matter one bit. Rey had been hungry before, having forgone luncheon in favour of gazing at Ren all afternoon, but now felt the pangs in her throat and her stomach. Her favourites were still baking, broiling, roasting in the kitchens, but there were great loaves of bread before them, plates piled with still-hot rolls, bowls of whipped butter, jars of spiced fruit jams with ornate spoons placed delicately atop of them. Rey reached for a roll and watched one of the knights – the ashy-haired woman - bend over Ren’s shoulder and open her mouth to speak.

 

                 His hand rose up to stop her. “Don’t disturb me.” He didn’t look away from Rey.

 

                 The woman faltered. “My lord-“

 

                 Ren turned his head. Rey didn’t see it, but the look he gave her made her stand up, clear her throat, and put distance between them both.

 

                “You can go,” Rey said, though she didn’t want him to. “If it’s important …”

 

                “Nothing’s more important than the lady of a great house.”

 

                She couldn’t stop herself from smiling, then, even if she knew the naivety of it.

 

                 Rey's stomach growled when servants began to emerge from the kitchens. They staggered under the weight of platters and bowls and plates- there were golden pies as wide as Rey was long, latticed and laid with glazed pastry horses and foxes and dancing birds; beef, venison, pork, potato, cheese, leek.

 

                There were tens upon tens of capons, rubbed in salt and thyme and roasted until the skins were golden and crisp, fat with the bulk of bread stuffing. Rey saw suckling pigs on enormous silver platters, mouths stuffed with apples; there were entire roe deer, their antlers reattached after roasting and gilded to make a spectacle; great loins of veal stuffed with goose-liver and scarlet cherry sauce; countless pigeons baked in apple cider; roasted hares wrapped in crisped bacon and hot currant jelly; wild boar and aurochs and stags still spitted; hundreds of sausages with garlic and and pepper; rich blood puddings in carefully twisted rings, made with heavy spice and good grain; platters of salmon, readied in smokehouses, peppered all with capers and slices of tart lemon; boiled eggs sprinkled with saffron; great baked sturgeons on beds of their own black roe; mountains of peas and carrots and fried leeks; buttered turnips; soup of celery and pea and roasted ham-

 

                 There was more that Rey couldn’t see, and then there were drinks; water steeped with lemons, oranges, rose-petals, milk for the children and the pregnant, and then there was wine. She saw golden wine, imported from the warmer south, and blackberry, too – Armitage’s favourite. She didn’t dare even look in his direction.

 

                 Rey put on her plate two great sausages and drowned them in apple sauce. Then she took smoked salmon, a spoonful of sturgeon’s roe, a cut of thick blood pudding, a thick slice of veal and its stuffing, a hank of roast boar, a punnet of strawberries, and a chunk of sharp cheese. Ser Ren watched, smiling.

 

                “ _Eat,_ ” she said, and placed with her meatfork three garlic sausages on the plate before him.

 

                “Are you always this demanding?” he asked her.

 

                 Rey blushed as she ladled apple sauce over them. “It depends.”

 

                Most knights – most men, in fact – would talk about themselves for hours upon hours, and look very sharply at any interjection that deviated from their desired topic of conversation. Rey found Ren asking her things that would cause her to talk and talk and talk. He was an avid listener. She could feel the heat of Armitage’s glare. The second course was brought to the tables.

 

                “… eighteen months,” Rey was saying, when an entire suckling pig was set down before them. “I’ve been here for a year. But it’s eighteen months since I was-“

 

                “-betrothed?” Ren suggested.

 

                Rey had finished her plate. She sliced great hanks of meat from the pig and poured onion gravy onto it. Ren was sipping at wine. “Yes,” she said.

 

                “And do you like it here?”

 

                “I like it well enough.”

 

                Ren leant back in his seat, barely noticing as a serving-girl filled his cup again. “I couldn’t stand the rain.”

 

                “Oh, but I love the rain. And the cold, too. It makes everything so green and fresh.”

 

                “Isn’t it very warm in Stewjon?”

 

                “Much warmer than it is here,” Rey allowed. “My father hates the cold. He sits in his glass garden wrapped up in furs like a baby most days.”

 

                “Your father knew my grandfather,” Ren said. “Intimately.”

 

                 She looked up at him. “The ‘slave’ boy,” he continued. When she stilled, he put a hand on her knee – Rey was sure that the skin was melting off the side of her face from the terrible fire of Armitage’s gaze – and said, “My grandfather was this ‘slave’ boy, my lady. Scandalous, isn’t it?” He was smiling, and from the smile Rey rather though that he didn’t find it scandalous at all.

 

                “Your _grandfather?_ ” Ren was haughty, rich, and well-bred, like a prize plough-horse, strewn with ribbons at the faire. Hailing from slavery was a genealogical fate she would never have guessed for he or his kin.

 

               “’Slave’ is the wrong word. ‘Courtesan’ is better. The most beautiful courtesan in Tatooine. His name was Anakin.”

 

 _Anakin._ Tatooine was a great vast desert, far to the south, thick with infamy for its slave trade. “Your father found him there and brought him north. Fell in love with him when he was of age.”

 

              “Is it a very long story?” she asked him, heart hammering. She had only been told vague wisps of that story before.

 

               He smiled. “Why? Do I bore you?”

 

              “No. But you could tell me the rest another time, when we’re alone.”

 

              She watched the realisation of dark and treacle-sweet delight spread across his long face.

 

              “Another time,” he echoed.

 

               “Yes. I like stories like that, but not when everyone else is being loud. You could take tea with me in my rooms.” _And I could hear the story without being sick in front of the great hall._

 

              Ren’s eyes lifted towards the dais. “Your husband-“

 

            “I said _my_ rooms, not _our_ rooms. I have my own chambers.”

 

             “Oh?”

 

             “It’s a very long story,” she told him. Ren’s great paw found her hand and squeezed it gently.

 

             “Tell me at tea,” he said.

 

                 They were interrupted, then, by serving girls and boys bearing great platters groaning under the burden of more food. Sweets, Rey realised – wide cakes glazed with honey; tiny, iced lemon tarts as big as the palm of her hand; steaming apple tarts, decorated with delicate pastry leaves, surrounded by a moat of cold clotted cream; golden pear pies; plums and grapes and berries stewed in rosewater; wheels of cheese that could have rolled a cart, served on great wooden boards, followed by pots of honey, by raspberries and strawberries and grapes piled high in glass bowls. Sweet wines came, too, and Ren covered his cup when a serving-girl made to fill it.

 

               Rey wanted dessert, no matter how shocking the story about her father had been.

 

               “Not thirsty?” Rey asked, slicing a great wedge of goat’s cheese and lifting the honeypot’s wand to drown it in gold. Ren never took his eyes from her face.

 

               “Not for wine.”

 

                Rey’s face burned as she ate, cheeks aching with the urge to smile. The cheese was thick and tangy. “I know plenty of high ladies that are too frightened to eat at court,” Ren told her. “They think it improper.”

 

              She felt a little indignant at that, and swallowed. “Well, _I_ don’t think so.”

 

             “Nor do I.”

 

              Rey wondered if she could match him bite for bite. He hadn’t eaten this evening very much – he had been too occupied with her – but big men didn’t get big from sucking air. Rey wanted to watch him _eat._

 

                She remembered being young and sneaking out of the bailey to the town beyond the keep, dressed like a layman’s child, and sliding silver coins across the counter of the big tavern in exchange for a great plate of peasants’ food, the innkeeper’s wife always eyeing her with a vague smile. Their food was all she wanted – gold-leaf cake and grapes from the south worth their weight in silver didn’t interest her – and she would stagger home, fit to burst. She’d like to have seen _him_ eat that – rabbit and beef and turnip and thick slices of bread dripping with butter and fried with lard, finished with tart stewed apples and cream whipped thick.

 

               Rey decided she would cast aside the idea of _tea_ altogether. She would have the serving-girls bring beef and stew and fried bread, plates and plates of it. She didn’t want to sit primly and sip at bitter leaf with a man she was sure would scarcely fit in the tea-chairs and whose fingers were so thick they would break the delicate handles of the teacups. They would drink ale instead – or cider, perhaps, wrought from pears.

 

               “If I’m to accept an invitation take tea with you,” Ren was saying, “you must accept an invitation to ride with me on a hunt.”

 

                 She’d been on them, but never with knights. “Would you do me the honour, lady?” he asked, leaning close.

 

                “Perhaps.” She toyed with her food, her flesh burning with the heat of Armitage’s glare. “It depends on what you would give me.”

 

                 Ren’s dark eyes flashed. Rey thought privately that there were plenty of things he’d like to _give_ her, and she him. “Whatever you would have.”

 

                 “You’ll have to convince me, Ser Ren, and know that I’m not easily persuaded.”

 

                “I’m sure there’s something I could do to convince you _. Another_ new pony? A new saddlebanner, perhaps?”

 

                 “That’s for you to discover, is it not?” she asked him. “I’ve heard about your hunts. You could strike a rabbit’s babe from a thousand yards in the fog – or so the stories go. I’m sure you’ll find a way, Ser Ren. Your prowess is …   _legendary_.”

 

                Her words were those of a grown woman – a courtly queen, regal and untouchable and bred from silk and gold – but her girl’s heart was hammering in her chest. Ren was as big as a warhorse. Even without the stories she had heard in servants’ close huddles, she would have known that the big man was well-ridden, and presumably those that he laid with had been left well-ridden, too.

 

                Ren smiled at that. Rey reached for a lemon tart. The tart was small, but it would have taken Rey two or three bites to eat it all. Ren took it all at once when she offered it to him, and sharp edge of his teeth against her fingers made her shiver. She could _feel_ the wildfire ripples of Armitage’s rage from across the room.

 

               When the feast began to wane, her heartbeat picked up. She could make as much of a spectacle of herself _here,_ but she had to go back to the chambers and to Armitage. She could scarcely bring the big knight along to protect her.

 

                She tried to ignore her husband when she left – Ren duly kissed her hand and said good-night, wolfish eyes flashing– and hid in her gaggle of ladies-in-waiting. Rose, she could tell, was bursting at the seams with anticipation of what Rey would relay to her. Armitage was _angry –_ she could feel it rolling off him in waves as red as pain, as red as his hair. She made it to their chamber first, but he was close behind.

 

                Armitage slammed the door so hard that the iron handles _clank_ ed. Rey sat on the bed and glared out the window, waiting.

 

                “You certainly made a spectacle of yourself,” she heard him bite.

 

                “What do you care?” Rey asked, without looking at him. She felt rooted to the bed even so. Outside the windows, it was dusky and dark. Rain pattered against the glass. Ren made her cheeks glow and her stomach swoop. She _liked_ him, ever so much – even if she had known him only for half a day – and by his words and his actions he seemed to like _her,_ too. She didn’t care if all he wanted was to get between her legs.

 

                Armitage was undressing, unusually rough with his clothes in his anger. Rey listened unhappily as he said, “Are you not a woman married? Do women married often feed knights by hand at dinner? Or is that what your father taught you?”

 

                “Because you care _so_ much about our marriage,” she griped.

 

                “You are a _child,_ ” Armitage snapped. “Ren is a man grown and a _knight_ and-“

 

                “ _You’re_ a man grown,” she said, turning to look at him. “You’re older than Ren.”

 

                “His intentions are _vastly_ different.”

 

                She knew what he meant and she didn’t care. _He’s jealous._

               

                Rey huffed. “Would that they could be the same.”

 

                Armitage laid his doublet over the back of the writing-chair, scarlet with rage. The door opened with a clunk and a gentle, “My lord?” came from the hall. _Rose._

 

                “Leave us,” Armitage said, never once looking away from Rey.

 

                Rey began, “No-“

 

                “ _Leave us!”_ Armitage bellowed, and the door closed. Rey stared at it.

 

                He pulled his undershirt over his head, leaned on the back of the chair, and said sharply, “You are my _w-_ “

 

“Your what?” Rey challenged him, climbing to the edge of the bed with her teeth bared like a dog. He stared at her, crimsoning. Despite herself, she ogled his chest and shoulders and arms, snow-pale, so rarely revealed by light. “Go on. Your _what?_ Wife?” She spat on the wooden floor. “Fuck your _wife._ ”

 

Then she sat back, and said, “But I forget myself. You _can’t-“_

 

Armitage cast the chair across the room with a force she had never seen him use and would have never imagined could be wrought from the lean dexterity of his tall frame. Rey watched it shoot through the air and smash into pieces upon the floor, legs all askew, nails bending and flying across the carpets. His chest heaved.

 

Rey screeched for Rose, for Phasma, for Grievous, for Palpatine, for _Ren_ , for anyone that would come. Her skull rang with the stories she had heard of high ladies beaten to death by their jealous lords. She could hear someone armoured clanking down the hall as she leapt across the bed, shouting. The door flew open.

 

                “Go, then,” Armitage roared. “Go and crawl to Ser Ren’s bedchambers like some lowly tart-bearing whore. Gods know that’s all your House reared you to be!”

 

                Rey had her own chambers in a turret spiralling west of the lord’s bedchamber hall – Armitage had promised them to her as a rookery when they first wed, but Rey, desperate to be loved by her lord, declined. Her screeching brought half a hundred people out of their beds and chambers and up the stairs, and within half an hour the rookery had been swept and rushed and sweetened with perfumes. A bed was dragged from an empty chamber and carried up the turret and dressed in new sheets. It was followed by a set of chairs and a writing-desk. Rose appeared with a great armful of clothes, having braved the dragon’s lair of Armitage’s bedchamber, and Rey heard her murmur to Phasma that the lord was outraged by Rey’s audacity and was, this very moment, marching up the stairs like a prodded bull.

 

                “Don’t let him in,” Rey ordered Phasma, who stood outside the door. Rose closed it behind her and stood with her back to it, staring at Rey.

 

                “Rey,” she heard, muffled by the thick wood of the door. She stared at it. “ _Rey._ ”

 

                Rey rose up and slapped the door hard so that she heard him stumble back, heard the clank of Phasma’s armour as she shifted. “Go _away._ ”

 

                “Open the door.”

 

                “No.”

 

                “Rey.”

 

                “ _No_!”

 

                He was silent, and then: “Phasma, open this door.”

 

                “My lord-“

 

                “ _Now!”_

 

                Rey kicked and screamed when Armitage forced his way in, flying at him like a kicked cat and throwing her balled fist with destructive aim and intention towards his face. Rose dared get between them, exclaiming, “My lady, stop – my _lord –_ “

 

                “ _Get him out,_ ” Rey bellowed, swiping over Rose’s shoulder at Armitage’s jugular. He dodged it, head thrown back, and his eyes filled with shocked rage when Phasma manhandled him out. Rey felt a sick streak of satisfaction at that – his _own_ lordsguard.

 

                She was on the bed, red-eyed and shaky. “I _hate_ him,” she hissed. “I hate him, I _hate_ him! He’s so _hateful,_ how could _one_ man be so _hateful-“_

The turret was, over the following days, repurposed into her own personal chambers. Her possessions were relocated – the servants dared brave Armitage’s wrath to retrieve her books, armoire, her dresses, her gems – and she resisted the urge to lay the dresses Armitage had bought her on the bed and stab and slash them with her garter-knife. She ordered the servants to rip down the banners of Hux and hang her the blue stag from wall to wall. Her rooms would be blue, blue, _blue._

               

                She felt _herself_ waning, days later, when as she took her breakfast in bed, having refused since her relocation to be anywhere near Armitage or the great hall, Rose presented a letter stamped with the red fox to her. Rey didn’t stop spooning up her eggs, eyeing it.

 

                “Is that from Armitage?”

               

                “I think so.”

 

                Rey sniffed. “I’d like some more bacon, please.”

 

                “My lady,” Rose said, voice soft.

 

                “And some toast.”

 

                “My lady,” Rose implored her. “Just read it. You can throw it into the fire if you want to. But the others say he’s twice as bitter without you.”

 

                “ _Bitter,”_ Rey scoffed. “He’s worse than bitter.” She took the letter, purposely opened it with a knife still stained with butter so that the fat marked the careful cream leaf, and barely read it, eyes skimming the neat lines.

 

                _Lady wife … absence … swift return … apology … tea._

 

                Rey fired it at the foot of the bed with a, “ _Bollocks_ to him!” loud enough that he might be able to hear it through the floor. Rose caught it before it tumbled to the floor.

 

“Burn it,” Rey ordered, and when the girl hesitated, “ _burn_ it, Rose! I don’t want to see it. I don’t want it anywhere near me.”

 

Rose read it before she put it carefully atop of the burning logs. It took flame instantly. Rey shovelled bacon into her mouth, furious. “How _dare_ he!” she expostulated, once she had swallowed. “A _letter!_ He couldn’t even be bothered to get up and say it to my face-“

 

“You scratched him when he tried that, my lady.”

 

“Still! He should have _tried!_ He’s so _–_ so – he’s like a mannequin! I bet he doesn’t even _bleed!”_

Rose half-smiled. “He bled when you scratched him, my lady.”

 

She ambled about the room, tidying this and neatening that. She was standing at the window with a clutch of goose-feathers for dusting when Rey blurted: “I invited Ser Ren to take tea with me.”

 

Rose turned. “Ser Ren?”

 

“At the feast. I meant to tell you, but –“ She faltered. “He asked me to come on a hunt with him.”

 

Almost audaciously, Rose breathed, “ _Rey._ ”

 

“I know.” Rey buttered toast, something aflutter in her chest despite her anger. “Armitage said, ‘go to him if you want him so badly’ and – and I will! I _will!_ But he can come to _me_ first _._ ”

 

Rose paused, as though considering. “Does Ser Ren _drink_ tea?”

 

“I don’t think so. Likely not. In any case, those big sausage-fingers of his are far too thick to fit through the teacup handles. I don’t want them broken.”

 

“Then what will you do?”

 

“We’ll eat,” Rey said. “We’ll talk and we’ll eat.”

 

Rose pulled from her apron a tiny book of parchment, a stick of graphite with a rag about its length so that she didn’t stain her hand. “Eat what?” She was ever so efficient, Rey thought, and sat up.

 

                “Beef,” she decided. “Roast beef in its fat. And rabbit in honey.” Rose scribbled it down, watching. “And turnip and butter and parsley.”

 

                Rose paused. “Turnip?”

               

                “What?” Rey demanded.

 

                “My lady, turnip for the Lord of Coruscant?”

 

                “Yes. He’ll eat it. Now, mark this,” Rey continued. “Turnip and butter and parsley, have you got that down? Good, then write brown bread – _thick_ slices – fried in beef dripping.  Garlic sausages. Roasted onions.”

 

                “And for sweet?”

 

                “Stewed apple and cream,” Rey decided.

 

                “Should I go to the kitchens _now_?”

 

                “Yes, do. Give them plenty of time.”

 

                Rose made for the door. Rey looked at the fire. “Wait,” she exclaimed. Rose turned on her heel.

 

               “Write lemon tarts,” Rey said. “Little ones.”

 

               

**♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘♘**

 

                She accepted her husband’s invitation in the end. She _loathed_ him and wanted to spite him by slurping her tea and glaring and cursing over the cakes. She wanted to be kissed and held and told that he really and truly _did_ love her and that he was a stupid old fool and that he’d never be cold to her ever again, never, _never_ _ever_ -

 

                Rey purposely wore the dress that Armitage’s father had sent her, sewn back together as good as new by the keep seamstress. His eyes flashed dangerously when he saw it, but he said nothing until they were alone.

 

                “It doesn’t suit you,” he said, when the serving-girl closed the doors behind her. Rey didn’t look at him, and put an entire cherry bun in her mouth. He waited with a tight jaw as she chewed noisily and swallowed.

 

                “You said I looked like a clover,” she said thickly, spraying him with crumbs. A muscle pulsed in his cheek as he flicked them away.

 

                “You did. I didn’t say it suited you.”

 

                There was a silence. Rey plucked the cherries off another bun. “Odd,” Armitage said stiffly, pouring tea from a dark pot into handled crystal glasses, “that I have to arrange a meeting with my own w-“ He pursed his lips mid-sentence when Rey shot him a dark look.

 

                “Drink,” he said.

 

                “No,” Rey said. “ _Fuck off_.”

 

                Hux scoffed at her, and she resisted the urge to cast the tea across the table at him, to dash the boiling contents of her cup across his face. _Perhaps it would put some life into him,_ she reasoned darkly. _A man with scars is always beddable._

 

                “ _You_ did this,” Rey snapped, unable to contain her rage under a façade of nonchalance any longer. “ _You_ did this because you’re not man enough to bed me. This isn’t _my_ fault, it’s _yours._ I _hate_ you.”

 

                “I know very well that you hate me,” Hux said briskly. “You never fail to make a point of it.” He stood up, a touch of colour burgeoning in the apples of both high, pale cheeks. “And yet, no matter what I do, you still feel the same. Perhaps we ought to consider … alternative measures. Something permanent.”

 

                Rey stared at him. Her eyes went wide when she gathered his meaning. “Annulment.”

 

                Armitage looked out the window, face glassy. “If that’s what you want.” The dim light greyed his pale face.

 

                She did, almost, but most of her dreaded the thought. “Is it what _you_ want?” she asked him, on the verge of tears.

 

                It seemed a struggle for him to say it. “No. But one must consider all options. I won’t stand to be made a fool of while you roll about in Ser Ren’s bedchamber like one of his whores.”

 

                Rey rose up, trembling. She took hold of his hand and was shocked when he didn’t pull it away. “Look at me. _Look_ at me. What we do – sometimes – at night – why is it _just_ that? Why are you so afraid? Why won’t you _lie_ with me?”

 

                He stared at her when she turned his face to her own, limpid green eyes swimming with something she had never seen. She dared lift his hand to his lips as though she meant to kiss it.

 

                Armitage yanked it away hard. “Go to him,” he said, and his voice was softer but more bastardly than ever she had heard it. “He wants you, so go to him and be ha-“

 

                In a rage, Rey slapped at his chest, his face, his hands when he tried to restrain her. “I don’t _want_ Ren,” she exclaimed, “I don’t _want_ Ren, I want _you,_ and you treat me like a _child!”_

 

                Then she stood back, breathing heavily. Something ugly unfurled in her chest, and she knew that she was about to say something vulgar.

 

                “A child,” she breathed, “whose thighs you just can’t _wait_ to get your mouth between.”

 

                Armitage’s face went scarlet with rancour. She thought for a moment that the ice would melt in a great rush of steam – that he would lift his hand and slap her across the face, throw her onto the floor, pull her hair – but he froze over again, and turned away. Rey stepped back, hands tingling. She wanted to push him through the stained glass and down onto the parapets and watch his body tumble and twist through the air to the cobbles below like a child’s doll.

 

                “I’m _not_ your _doll_ ,” she seethed, teeth gritted. “Do you hear me? If you want me to go to Ser Ren so badly, then I will. Watch me. _”_ She wrenched her hand out of his when he took it, an icicle of remorse in his eyes. “Go and kill your father, then, bastard. Enjoy your cold bed. I’ll _never_ lie in it again.”

 

                  

 

**Author's Note:**

> I rather adore Hux, and Rey, and Reyux. I think that this light-dom/sub dynamic is very interesting.
> 
> To clarify, this fic is set in a fictional universe much like 16th century Europe, particularly England (this is taken from my own original fantasy fiction) but several things are very different. You'll notice that Hux mentioned female knights, and that Phasma is a female guard. The fic will carry on much like this, so I'm just telling you now so that I don't get anyone in the comments screaming about "hIStoRicaAL inNacCurAciEs!!"
> 
> I'm @hagenshall on Tumblr if you'd like to follow me/ask about this fic or my other fic. Enjoy!


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